Interrailing in Europe summer 2010 introduction

It was somewhere around October- November 2009 when me and Saija happened to realize that both of us had a dream about travelling around Europe. It didn't took that long before we had asked our holidays from work to be in the beginning of summer. We got together couple of times to plan our trip but mostly we talked online and on a phone to book flights and other stuff. I spent countless amount of time sitting in front of my computer and reading about Europe, interrailing, different cities, train timetables, weather, comparing plane ticket prices, looking for hostels and tips from other travellers where to go and what to see and do! Together we thought of the cities we wanted to see and what we wanted to explore and experience. We looked maps to make our route make sense, it took a while before our final route was figured out.. We didn't only want to just pass the cities and only see the train stations so we decided that we wanted to spend at least a couple of days in the biggest cities. :) We booked our flights after comparing prices many weeks. On 5th of June was our flight to London and we only paid 77€/head. Back home the flight was from Athens on 1st of July and it cost us 140€/head. Altogether it was 27 days of travelling. We also purchased an interrail ticket which was valid on 10 train trips which had to be used within 22 days. It cost 239€/head so it was quite expensive now that I think it afterwards. It was only for regional trains so when we crossed country borders we had to pay extra. Also when we once used Eurostar train we had to buy the tickets which were 65€/head..

Before the trip we had to buy backpacks and other stuff that we needed. We wanted to travel somewhat cheap so we solved this by trying to only stay at hostels and also try couch surfing. We tried to find hostels that had kitchens so we could make our own food and not to eat out for 27days.. Guess how many times we made our food? 

We made a list what we at least wanted to do on the trip: 

• parasailing (we wanted to try that already last summer in Bulgaria but we never did..) 
• see Madame Tussauds museum in London
• Couch surfing in some city (great way to meet local people!)
• Thames river miniboatcruise or whatever it's called. :D 
• Hop on Hop off tourist sightseeing experience (probably in London)
• Stay on local people's house for couple of nights (in Paris)  
• PARTY and having a great time in Europe! 

On our journal there was a page called Things to remember which included all the time differences, important phone numbers to various people, boat timetables, addresses, hostels and their addresses and prices, we also had written down the most famous sightseeing places in the biggest cities 'cause we didn't want to miss anything important.. ;) 

Interrail in Summer 2010: United Kingdom, France, Italy and Greece
Helsinki --> London --> Paris --> Lyon --> Torino --> Milan --> Venice --> Patras --> Corinth --> Poros --> Athens --> Helsinki